The US Senate's report on prewar intelligence about Iraq, which asserts that warnings about its illicit weapons were largely unfounded and that its ties to Al-Qaeda were tenuous, undermines yet another justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein's military posed a threat to regional stability and American interests.

In a detailed discussion of Iraq's prewar military posture, a media report cites a long series of intelligence reports in the decade before the war that described a formerly potent army's spiral of decay under the weight of economic sanctions and American military pressure.

The main risk of an attack by Hussein against the US and nations in the region was his unpredictability, these reports indicated. They found it especially hard to predict what he would do if threatened by the likelihood of American military action. But the Senate Intelligence Committee called this analysis relatively weak, the 'New York Times' said.

The committee's report, the paper says, implies that war opponents were essentially correct when they argued that Iraq posed little immediate threat to the US. Before the war, those who held this view, both in Congress and at the United Nations, argued that continued containment was preferable to an invasion.

Although the report described a profound breakdown in the American intelligence system, both White House and Congressional officials said the political calendar will prevent any serious action until after the November elections, the Times said.